


explaining is an admission of failure

by fab_ia



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Mild Gore, Poetic Ramblings of a Very Gay Colonel, Violence, typical ooc second person bs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 06:56:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21540247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fab_ia/pseuds/fab_ia
Summary: 'it’s criminal, really, how damned pretty he can be in those precious moments the two of you are so good at getting. how he makes your heart skip a beat. you could study his face for hours.'
Relationships: Daniel Jacobi/Warren Kepler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	explaining is an admission of failure

it’s criminal, really, how damned pretty he can be in those precious moments the two of you are so good at getting, now. stolen seconds late at night or early in the morning, the sky obsidian-dark and weighing down on the two of you like a velvet, light-speckled quilt. he looks gorgeous, illuminated by the streetlights outside and silhouetted against the sky. you could study his face for hours in that instance, and you do it for as long as you’re able - you’re so intimately familiar with the curve of his throat, now, with the way his cheeks are marked with flecks, with kisses from helios himself. good god, given half a chance, you’d like to see how long it would take to kiss each of his freckles, every single one. you want him to know how breathtaking he is, how he makes your heart skip a beat, your lungs seize and your stomach twist.

there are oh-so-many things you could liken him to - you could compare him to any number of gods, of heroes, wax poetic about the power he conceals behind a smile and glinting eyes. he’s got all the elegance of a landslide, sometimes, and on other days he’s as damn graceful as the first frost and you don’t  _ understand _ him, he’s so much, he’s so  _ much _ . you kiss up his throat, line his jaw with your lips, listen to the way his breath catches in his throat and fall in love with the rhythm of his heart.  _ adagio, andante, allegro vivace,  _ _ lui è bello,  _ and your stomach feels like it’s lead when he kisses you again, skin damp and cool from the cloth now sitting on the bedside table. your lips curve up into a smile against his anyway, you rest your hands on his hips and rub apologies into the bruises left by your fingers. 

idly, you wonder if it’s at all possible to leave five perfect divots on either side of his pelvis, if he’ll bear the marks of your complete lack of self-control long after you’re both six feet under. it’s more than a little embarrassing, actually, but you’re fighting a smile as you rest your hands over them anyway. jacobi - still, accepting your exploration with the quirked eyebrow that betrays him as somewhere between curious and amused - lets out a breath, irritated, maybe, and pulls away to stand.

“where are you going?”

he doesn’t answer. it doesn’t surprise you all that much. half of his entertainment in moments where you let your guard down is seeing how far he can push you before you snap back to the rigidity required of you - of  _ both _ of you, although he doesn’t give a single shit about it, as far as you can tell. when the shower starts, you notice it immediately. the water-on-porcelain sound cuts through the twilight silence in a way that’s all too loud. you can hardly hear your own breath over it. why is it so  _ loud _ ?

you roll over and, with all the grace of a drunk after last call, bury your face into the pillow, nose pressed against cotton infused with the smell of what you think is a jarringly artificial cherry scent. washing powder? the shampoo jacobi’d palmed at the convenience store a couple days before, just to see if he could? you don’t know. thinking is too loud, too hard. you’re tired.

halfway to falling asleep, you blink and turn your face up when there’s a weight on the bed next to you before it turns into a hand on your shoulder. warm and calloused, you press your head down with a soft sigh again, ignoring the few water droplets still earnestly clinging to his skin as he curls around you, arm slung over your waist.

the two of you are still like that when you wake up again, the first slivers of dawn forming pools of gold on the white sheets. it’s quieter now, again, the breathing of the man beside you a perfectly acceptable level and the slowly-rising chorus of the city almost familiar in its bustle.

“good morning,” jacobi breathes. in lieu of a real answer you simply hum, which he seems to accept at any rate, pressing sleep-dry lips against the bare skin of your shoulder as you press your face back into the pillow. he’s always softer in the mornings, sunrise smoothing out his jagged corners and making him malleable, soft as wax under that early sun. your perfect icarus, except he’s never made quite such a grave error. maybe you’re  _ his _ icarus. in any case, neither of you are flying right then, decidedly grounded in the too-soft mattress of the hotel room, sinking into it as though it’s that sea. 

brushing hair from your forehead, he rests his fingers against your skin for a hesitant moment and you have to catch yourself from reeling at the sudden different extremes you’re aware of right then. warm hands against cool skin, fire and ice and sun and moon and,  _ lord _ , if the two of you could really have this, you might even call him ‘sunshine’. he’s certainly radiant enough for it. a little language practice, maybe, call him any number of pet names he’ll only half-understand on a good day, considering how few shits he’s ever given about properly learning anything but english. god, you could tell him just about  _ anything _ in another language and you doubt that he’d fucking question it at all.

maybe you’ll try it one day, just to see what happens when you call him a bastard in german in the same breath you tell him he’s a genius. he’s both of those things, you both know that, he’s a prodigy with issues he pushes aside in favour of snark and an easy smirk. you hate it, you love it. your golden boy, your right hand man, second-in-command. you’re so proud of what he’s become, so much more monstrous than you ever actually imagined he could be, but he’s  _ glorious _ . maybe it’s wrong - oh, it’s definitely wrong - but you truly do love how he looks after a fight; cuts still bleeding a little and bruises barely hinting at forming, but he looks at you with a glint in his eye as he wipes his hand off on his pants and gets to his feet. if you kissed him, you wonder, would it taste like stale coffee, cigarettes, or would his blood end up in your mouth? would he taste like iron or would he taste like he usually does - would he be familiar? 

in that moment, you find, he tastes like iron, and neither of you seem to care a bit about it, his hand going straight to your hair and pulling you closer even as you can feel chunks of it sticking together. you’re kissing half-desperately and it’s probably all because of you, because you’re already drunk on him after the first touch of your lips to his. call him whiskey, he’s golden and burning,  _ burning _ , and it makes you wonder how you aren’t burning with him.

  
  


and you take him home after that, of course, push him up against your door even when your dogs are barking at you for attention because you don’t want to stop touching him - you  _ can’t _ stop touching him. he’s still tacky with blood and grease and god knows what else, but his skin is warm against your frozen hands when you push his shirt up and untuck it, kissing your way down to his throat and listening to the breathy noise he lets out when your teeth scrape where you know he’s ticklish. you’ve definitely left at least one mark there when he pushes you off with a grin, telling you to see to the girls while he showers.

“i don’t get to join you, then?” you ask before you even really think about it. jacobi snorts.

“if you really want to.”

jesus christ, that shouldn’t make you shudder as you stare at him, leaning in the doorway to the hall that leads through to your room and the bathroom. “i’m gonna take a shirt and some underwear.”

“oh, you’re not asking?”

he doesn’t answer that. bastard.

his dirty clothes are in a pile by the toilet, probably smearing blood on the tile, and the clean ones are folded on the closed lid, so you do the same when you come through after filling the bowls for the dogs and scratching behind their ears. fuck knows where the cat is, but you’re sure she’ll turn up as soon as you’ve got jacobi in bed with you. or maybe it’ll be you in bed with jacobi. does that matter? it doesn’t matter. it definitely doesn’t matter, as long as it ends with you together.

he’s humming as you strip off and step in with him, the water warm as you close the shower door behind you. he raises his eyebrows at you, eyes following your body and lingering on some of your scars and the trail of dark hair leading down to--

“like the view?” he asks, suddenly, breaking the silence. you shake yourself - how long have you been staring, you wonder, but it doesn’t look like he minds. in fact, if his grin is anything to go by, he’s enjoying the attention, rolling his shoulders back and biting his tongue to hold in the laugh threatening to escape him when he notices how your eyes are lingering on the tattoo.   
“new,” you breathe. 

“fairly, yeah,” he says. “you gonna wash your hair? it’s got blood in it.”

“your fault.”

“shit, maybe it is,” he says, grinning again. “well, i’m going to bed.”

“oh.”

“i’ll wait up.”

“ _ oh _ .”

and wait up he does.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'little beast' by richard siken, which can be found at http://youngerpoets.yupnet.org/2008/04/22/little-beast-crush-by-richard-siken/
> 
> find me on tumblr @sciencematter


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